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Tal'theran vi Felo'Aran
Tal'theran vi Felo'Aran is Vynlarion Highcrest's personal aide and close confidant. He is also House Highcrest's envoy to the Magistrate of Quel'Thalas. Tal'theran has gone to great pains to be unknown to his people and remain outside the interest of the Blood Elven elite. History Childhood Tal'theran was born to parents he never knew. Too poor to afford raising a child, they left him with the Silvermoon Orphanage. Although it was a time of plenty for the High Elves, few were charitable toward orphanages, believing them to be the cause of poor breeding, not unforeseeable circumstances. From as early as he can remember, Tal'theran was out on Murder Row and any other streets the guards would not shoo him off to beg for coin. Few gave pity on him, given orphan's propensity to act in groups: one child lures a good Samaritan over to give coin while a few others steal from them. Tal'theran was a sloppy-looking child. He had long crimson hair that fell over his face and sloppily around his shoulders. He was frail and shook when he stood for too long. Concurrently, he had something of a nervous stutter, the product of many shouting matches with guards demanding he stop panhandling. As he grew, he found himself burdened with a very inconvenient reality: he had latent arcane powers. The matron of the Silvermoon Orphanage told him she had never seen a child so gifted with magic in years, but explained that Falthrien Academy was unlikely to take him on for free. Tal'theran resigned himself to a life of poverty, unseen by the privileged public's eye. Unfortunately, his latent abilities quickly proved too much for him to handle without some sort of mentorship. While out begging in the Walk of Elders, a guard told him to leave. Having actually received a few copper coins that day, Tal'theran protested. Upon being rebuked, the guard grabbed the boy and hauled him to his feet. Tal'theran lost control of the magic that eternally swirled inside him and sent an arcane charge through his body, throwing him across the street. At the sound of commotion, more guards arrived to find the boy Tal'theran looking aghast at the still form of the charred elf. Onlookers called for him to be exiled from the city while others went as far as to demand he be executed on the spot. It was then that a single voice drowned out all those around them. The guards broke rank and allowed a hulking figure clad in gold and azure armour with a massive broadsword across his back through. The elf demanded to know what had happened, and upon hearing that the boy had attacked a guard with such arcane ferocity the man had been knocked out, was intrigued. Once the crowd dispersed at the the golden haired elven knight's order, he introduced himself as Vynlarion Highcrest VI. He explained to Tal'theran that his gift was like nothing he had seen in his thousand years of life and wanted to sponsor him at the Falthrien Academy on one condition: he would serve House Highcrest for life. As repayment, Vynlarion would provide him with a home at his manor in the Sin'Redar Province when he was not at school. Over time, Tal'theran would enjoy a privileged status no servant or vassal in service of the Highcrests would enjoy. Falthrien Academy If Tal'theran though the academy would be easy, he was terribly mistaken. His arcane reserves were extremely abnormal and he struggled daily to contain them during lessons. His teachers looked down on him for his humble beginnings and his peers did the same. Magisters, being of a privileged status, did not welcome those outside of their elite social class. As a result, Tal'theran was still alone in life, without a friend or family. Vynlarion did not visit, and instead would send one of his aides to check up on what he often referred to as his magical investment, a term that the young mage apprentice did not appreciate. However, during a week-long break in his first year at the academy, Tal'theran returned to find that Vynlarion and his young son - a boy Tal'theran had yet to meet - had left for a good will mission to Stormwind to shore up trading ties. The apprentice despaired at the thought of being in such a massive, opulent manor without the one person he knew wanted him there. However it was Vynlarion's beautiful and wise wife, Lathinal, that went to meet with him. She explained that she too was a magister and had fought with the Highcrest lord many times. Upon hearing of his talents, she insisted they meet. In Lathinal, Tal'theran found a mother. She was warm and encouraging: she never showed any disappointment when he struggled to contain and refine his mana, and instead would simply ask that he repeat himself until he understood the lesson. The two practised for only a week but Tal'theran found he loved the Highcrest matriarch like a boy would his mother. Lathinal, for her point, was entirely receptive of his adoration, and often called him "her magical boy." Upon returning to Falthrien Academy and much to the chagrin of his instructors and peers, Tal'theran returned a much more confident and skilled apprentice. Though his arcane repository continued to worsen as he aged, he was able to surpass his peers in quality spellweaving. Furthermore, he found a release for his dangerous mana font: he could create arcane and fire elementals and control them from long distance. As he continued to progress in the academy, Tal'theran slowly won the grudging respect of his peers and eventually began to make friends with them. These aristocratic children found him to be coy and, of great interest to them, very learned about the unknown underbelly of elven society. His illusions and conjurations proved to be of great amusement for all, except the victims of Tal'theran's pranks. Adrynar Even with a few friends at school, Tal'theran lacked someone his benefactor had spoken of: a confidant, or as a normal person would understand them: a best friend. The boy yearned for a deeper connection with someone. Someone he could confide in the horrors of his early childhood, his hopes and his dreams. It was in Vynlarion's young son Vynlarion Adrynar Highcrest VII he found this friend. Adrynar was two years younger than Tal'theran, but was tall for his age and of proud noble visage like his parents. The boy had his father's golden hair, but his mother's kind eyes. The two did not see each other often during Tal'theran's first few years at the academy, as Adrynar was also away, training with his eccentric great-granduncle, Varinal. While home on a break from the academy in his fifth year, Tal'theran found to his surprise that the future lord of House Highcrest was also home. The two were initially awkward around one another, but given that they were two of very few children their age in the Highcrest manor, they became fast friends. During one particularly disastrous camping trip where they were chased into the Sin'Redar Province by an Amani Troll spearman, Tal'theran awoke in hysterics due to a nightmare about his past. Adrynar prodded him until the mage apprentice confided in him his past: the crushing loneliness, the hostility and fear from the other orphans, the cruelty of Murder Row's transients, and the callous behaviour of the city guard. Most significantly, Tal'theran admitted his darkest secret to Adrynar: during the seven years prior to his pseudo-adoption by Vynlarion, his deepest wish was to die. The very idea of a child wanting to die broke Arynar's kind heart. The boy who would one day become Lord Highcrest pledged to his father's ward that he would always be his friend and that, for as long as they were together, Tal'theran would never again wish for death. The Accident Unlike what Vynlarion had theorised, learning how to hone his magic did not decrease Tal'theran's dangerous mana reserves. Instead, it had increased them. By the time he was eighteen and finishing at the academy, he had as many as thirty elementals roaming around, desperately trying to consume as much of his arcane reserves as possible. This solution, however, only worked as long as he concentrated keeping them there. If he fell unconscious for any reason, the elementals would disappear and, like a bucket collecting water from a well, eventually it would overflow and wreak havoc. During this final year of magical erudition, Tal'theran had fallen asleep while studying and in doing so had not slowly shut off his elementals. In one fell swoop, arcane magics swelled into his tired body. To his horror he found he could not control them, and in a hellish display of fire and arcane magic, Tal'theran destroyed an entire wing of the Falthrien Academy. Lathinal had recently become a major donor to the academy, endeavouring to open more doors for the poor who could stand to benefit from the academy's education. It was only by her skilful offer of both having the wing of the school repaired and giving a substantial donation - enough to build another wing of the school - was Tal'theran not expelled. He told Lathinal that he was grateful no one was present in the dorm wing that morning, but she believed something had to be done to stop this from happening again. The Binding Tal'theran knew what would happen to him. It was an ancient ritual passed down from the ancient Highborne of the Night Elf Empire, where arcane runes would be implanted on the skin of the individual and act as a ground for the otherwise volatile energies. Concurrently they would play the part of a battery, temporarily storing mana for when he was in need of more. Yet, the process was not without pain. After some prodding, Vynlarion admitted that the last time he had seen it done was when he was in his second century of life and that the recipient of the runes had screamed for days, begging for mercy, for respite, and later, for death. Tal'theran was mortified, but knew he had no choice. In words that would become engrained in the apprentice's head, Vynlarion told him that "Either you will wish for death as your powers consume you, or you will wish for death as we save you from them." The night prior to the rune ceremony, Tal'theran could not sleep. He left the manor and wandered the darkened gardens behind the ancient house. Much to his surprise, he met Lathinal out there. She explained she had been waiting for him and that her mother-in-law, the mysterious Alenyia Highcrest (née Duskwhisper) had given her a disturbing warning: her life was nearing its end. She assured the youth that she did not believe Alenyia, and, like her husband, uttered words that stuck with the mage apprentice: "You are very dear to my beloved. He looks upon you and his so very proud. In the eyes of my boy Adrynar, you are his world. To me, you are my second child, my magical boy, and I will always love you." Lathinal explained she was going on a trip to Alterac to investigate an arcane anomaly the Magistrate had discovered. She assured him that she would be with him when he recovered from the rune ceremony and sent him to bed. Tal'theran would never again see Lathinal Highcrest alive. The following day the rune ceremony began. For seven gruelling, terrible days, Tal'theran screamed in agony, begging for mercy and, as Vynlarion had portended, for death. The pain of having the runes put in his skin was beyond comparison: it was as though his skin was being peeled back layer by layer, only for a hot iron brand to be pressed down upon the tortured flesh below and left to heal itself. Magister of House Highcrest For seven days he had lay naked upon a marble slab, his blood pooling around it. When he was able to walk once more, he entered a Highcrest manor utterly devastated by tragedy. As Alenyia Highcrest had portended, Lathinal Highcrest was dead. She had been slain by a maddened Blue Dragon in Alterac. Vynlarion had slain the miserable leviathan, but was visibly and emotionally broken. Vynlarion did not speak during her funeral and abruptly left when her body had been laid to rest. It was left to the still recovering Tal'theran to console the devastated Adrynar. Having been an only child, Adrynar was wholly unprepared to lose his mother, who had been an oasis in a desert of pomp and circumstance in his family. For many weeks, Tal'theran did not leave his closest friend's side, determined that Adrynar would not be broken like his father. Vynlarion was barely seen and, when he was, was spotted with shocking streaks of silver in his hair, hollow eyes, a sunken face and a sagged back, quietly whispering Lathinal as he stopped to observe some object of shared sentimentality between widow and his beloved. In the power vacuum that Vynlarion's absence from head of his family, the Chief Magister and his associate magisters of House Highcrest invited Tal'theran to join their circle and aid in running the complex operation that was the Highcrest's province, trade and noble duties to Quel'Thalas. War and Wanderer Tal'theran was a constant, if often unseen, presence on the battlefield in the Second and Third Wars. Following many months of recovery, Vynlarion had become a much colder, more imperious man with a penchant for spilling blood in the name of his homeland. Prior to the First War, he had continued the warring work he had suspended during his grief with renewed vigour: fighting the Amani. When the First War came, Vynlarion eagerly dispatched a contingent of the Knights of the Realm to aid the humans. This force had been instructed by their Lord Commander that this was part of the pact Dath'Remar and Anasterian had made with the humans. Tal'theran and Adrynar suspected he was more concerned with spilling blood and not losing a valuable trading partner like Stormwind. Despite their aid, Stormwind fell and the elves retreated to Quel'Thalas. The Second War went much the same way the First War did for Tal'theran: standing in the background supporting both Adrynar and Vynlarion as they repeatedly over-extended themselves in battle. While the latter was invigorated by battle, Tal'theran worried for his dear friend Adrynar, who only seemed more and more moribund with every battle. When the battle came to Quel'Thalas, Vynlarion ordered all his magisters and all his battle-ready family into combat. The result was that many of Tal'theran's fellow Magisters of Highcrest fell and, in their absence, he was named Chief Magister for perpetually being at their lord's side. The Third War brought unparalleled loss to the Quel'dorei and, at one point, Vynlarion's temporary death. When the Sunwell was destroyed, the resulting loss in magical strength simply stopped the old lord's heart. It was only through a concerted effort between priests and all of Tal'theran's mana that Vynlarion was spared death. Without enough mana to draw in from his surroundings, Tal'theran became very ill. Under the leadership of the poerful magister Voren'thal, Adrynar and the weakened Tal'theran went to Outland to join Prince Kael'thas in finding a cure for their profound need for the arcane. It was there that Tal'theran found a source of arcane and a purpose. Voren'thal had been visited by the naaru A'dal and learned of the prince's madness and rebelled against him to saved the holy City of Shattrath. Between Voren'thal's forces - which included a righteous Adrynar now learning the ways of the Blood Knight and Tal'theran, now honing his fire magic - and the Aldor, held back Illidan's forces and saved the city from ruin. Return Home For years Adrynar and Tal'theran worked to restore some sense of peace in the shattered ruins of Outland. In Shattrath, Tal'theran found purpose in teaching men and women of all peoples the ways of magic and Adrynar found his calling as a healer after discovering the art of the paladin. In the same city Tal'theran acted as an anonymous benefactor of the newly created Shattrath Orphanage, funnelling what little money he made in the Scryers to support children he found in identical circumstances to his own, six centuries ago. Eventually, Vynlarion had need of his son and Chief Magister and called them home. To his dismay, Tal'theran found his benefactor and pseudo-father had aged more in the hard years between the Third War and the upcoming Second Scourge War. Vynlarion would never admit it, but both Tal'theran and Adrynar could see that their absence had left him to be a lonely soul without close company. From that point forward, Tal'theran would be ever-present, visibly or otherwise, near Vynlarion, as a mirror image or in person. The same went for Adrynar who continued his travels through the world. Adrynar, Tal'theran found, had grown into a kind man with a kingly heart who merely wanted to help those he came across. It was much to his father's irritation that he did not care to take up more noble responsibilities, but something told the mage that Vynlarion, at some level, approved of Adrynar's efforts. Recently, Tal'theran has become more active in public life, going so far as to meet and befriend Adrynar and Vynlaion's comrades. Relationships Vynlarion Highcrest VI Vynlarion is the closest thing to a father Tal'theran has ever had, despite the former's emotional coolness. He greatly respects the old Knight-Lord for his skill and bravery in battle and for the many victories he has fearlessly led. However, Tal'theran believes that Vynlarion's greatest achievement has been the successful continuation of his family. Despite losing many members of the Highcrest family, Vynlaion has moved aggressively to repopulate his family. It can be said that Tal'theran would do anything that would benefit Vynlarion. He is fiercely loyal to Lord Highcrest. Vynlarion Adrynar Highcrest VII Adrynar and Tal'theran have been close friends since childhood and their bond has only strengthened with time. Now men, the two are never far from one another, given the latter's propensity to cast multiple mirror images of himself near his loved ones. Adrynar is an exemplar of justice and mercy for Tal'theran, and constantly reminds him of Adrynar's late mother, Lathinal. He greatly respects his dear friend for always pushing him to consider the morality of a situation. Many have speculated whether the two have a relationship that moves beyond platonic, but these rumours have never been confirmed. Emayldne Illayne Lor'thanil One of the Tal'theran's contemporary friends, Emalynde both amuses and inspires the mage. He finds her to be articulate, noble in her countenance, yet not stuffy and pompous like so many noblemen and noblewomen he has met in his life. She is generous and kind-hearted, something Tal'theran finds she has in common with Adrynar. The two of them have become fast friends and often observe Vynlarion and Adrynar with a great deal of amusement. Erythis Firestorm The once fiancée of Vynlarion, her mere status as such came as a shock to Tal'theran. Never had he suspected the old knight would move on after Lathinal's tragic death centuries ago. The mage finds himself often puzzled by this ancient magistrix, for her ways are both very familiar - in that they are decidedly noble - but also very bizarre and foreign. As time has passed, Tal'theran has determined he likes Erythis: she is brave like Vynlarion, but kind like Emalynde, and critically, she possesses a mage's wit, something Tal'theran endlessly enjoys. Sophysa Dar'thiel Although an unlikely friend for a mage, the hunter Sophysa was one of Tal'theran's first friends he made through Vynlarion. The two became acquainted through business, as Tal'theran acted as Vynlarion's envoy in The Dawnfury Concordant. Following Vynlarion's departure from Dawnfury, Tal'theran retained good relations with Sophysa, and enjoys her different perspective on life. Tal'theran has found her to be a source of wise counsel on matters pertaining to interaction with others - something he often finds awkward. Category:Characters Category:Blood Elf Category:House of Highcrest Category:Magisters Category:Scryers Category:Sunreavers